#  Rikki Byrd 

Visiting Scholar in the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History

 

 

 



   ![Byrd, Rikki_ photo](/sites/g/files/omnuum5671/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-07/Byrd%2C%20RyQurie_photo.jpg?h=3027b6f8&itok=EEYKHRBe) 

 



 





 

Rikki Byrd is a writer, educator, and curator. She is the founder of [Black Fashion Archive](https://www.instagram.com/blackfashionarchive/?hl=en), co-founder of the [Fashion and Race Syllabus](https://fashionandrace.wordpress.com/), and is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Culture Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Art and Art History. Across her writing, teaching, and curatorial projects, she focuses on Black aesthetic practices in visual culture, art history, fashion, and performance. Her writing has appeared across academic journals and books, as well as popular media including *Hyperallergic*, *Cultured*, and *Teen Vogue*, and she has participated in speaking engagements with Getty Research Institute, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of African Diaspora San Francisco. Prior to UT Austin, Byrd was a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis.

As a[ curator](https://www.rikkibyrd.com/curatorial), Byrd has worked across various arts and cultural institutions. She was on the curatorial team for[ *The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century*](https://www.slam.org/exhibitions/the-culture-hip-hop-and-contemporary-art-in-the-21st-century/), and as an independent curator has organized *Lawrence Agyei: DRILL* at Blanc Gallery,[ *Behold, Be Held*](https://beholdbeheld.org/) at the Block Museum of Art, and[ *Visual Legacies: Photographs by Ellie Lee Weems*](https://www.marquette.edu/haggerty-museum/visual-legacies.php) at the Haggerty Museum of Art. She was also the inaugural Radicle Curator-in-Residence at[ Hyde Park Art Center](https://www.hydeparkart.org/hyde-park-art-center-announces-resident-artists-including-its-first-chicago-curatorial-resident-in-the-2024-roster-of-the-jackman-goldwasser-residency-program/) in Chicago, where she curated *Mark Me, Too: Five Artists*.

In addition to the Charles Warren Center Faculty Fellowship, Byrd is the recipient of residencies, fellowships, and awards from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, College Art Association, Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, and UT Austin’s Humanities Institute and Center for Women's and Gender Studies. During her time as a Faculty Fellow, Byrdwill work on her book manuscript *In Loving Memory: Art, Black Performance, and the Sartorial Politics of Mourning,* which explores the ways that Black people perform mourning through clothing, textiles, and adornment. The project connects a host of objects such as the hoodie, Rest in Peace T-shirts, performance art, and contemporary art to expand the archive of Black postmortem visual history.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Current People
    
     [Faculty Fellows](/faculty-fellows)